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Footwashing Near the Bottom of History

A Sermon for Maundy Thursday 2024 The gospel of John has been described by some scholars as a swinging pendulum—it starts in heaven: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.” Then it comes down to earth: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The True Light coming down into our…
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The Story of a Book

Not the story(s) in a book but the story of a book. Those little personal details—dedications, monograms, perhaps scraps of notes—that tell something of the provenance of the book. I was raised by a father who had no fear of flea markets or antique stores and am blessed to live in an area (Southeast Ohio)…
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Fear No Evil: How We Should Feel about Demons

C.S. Lewis wrote in the preface to The Screwtape Letters that there are two opposite errors we can make about demons: “One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”[1] We might add a third error: To believe in their existence but…
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Disentangling Prayer for the Dead from Purgatory [Commentary on Browne: Article XXII (1)]

Article XXII—which condemns “the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration, as well of images, as of reliques, and also invocation of saints”—does not mention prayer for the dead. Yet the practice of praying for the dead has historically been so intertwined with the doctrine of purgatory as it developed in the Church of…

Jesus is Arrested and Brought Before Annas — My Catholic Life!
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An Infamously Good Day: The day Jesus died

As you wake up on Good Friday, you might reflect on what has already happened on this day nearly two thousand years ago, and what will take place in the coming hours. While you were sleeping, Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was then taken before Caiaphas and…
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The Baptist Sacrament

I read Mere Orthodoxy’s “The Case for Baptist Anglicans” with great interest as an Anglican pastor in North Texas where the Baptist faith is the dominant religion. Accompanying Christians who have been catechized as Baptist is a core part of the job which I consider a privilege, having grown up Southern Baptist myself. The ecumenical…
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Credobaptism and Anglicanism

In a recent article for Mere Orthodoxy, Matthew Joss makes the case that the Anglican Church in North America should make ample room for so-called “credobaptists” (or just Baptists). In fact, he takes the argument a step further, arguing that in many ways, Anglicanism has made such room. In doing so, he has written, with…
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Walking as Wise: Knowing the Way of Christ by Walking in the Way of Christ

Beginning with the scientific revolution in the sixteenth century and continuing through the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that which was deemed knowable or worthy of being known, was limited to that which was empirically verifiable or rationally deducible from certain premises about the laws of nature. Outside of this narrow definition of…
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Queen of the Sciences: Recovering the Role of Theology in Classical Christian Education

  Introduction In 1947, Dorothy Sayers delivered an address at Oxford University articulating a vision for the future of education. She began by enumerating the challenges that educators of her day were facing, challenges that may resonate with eerie familiarity for modern educators: they were inundated with prodigious responsibilities, both administrative and academic, and students…
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Book Review: “Life in the Negative World”

Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture. By Aaron M. Renn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024. 272 pp. $26.99 (hardcover). The past several years have seen multiple releases in the “everyone hates us, what do we do now?” subgenre of Christian cultural commentary, with no fewer than three such titles being published…

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